Memories Covered in Chocolate Chip
by ReadBooksWriteThings
Summary: Memories covered in chocolate chip. This is a one-shot about Harry and Ginny making cookies together after the war. Rated T because I'm overly cautious.


**Author's note**

**This fic is for the Trick or Treat Challenge and Competition on HPFC. The prompt I used was**...

**Potters**

**9\. (food) chocolate chip cookies**

**This fic is**** also for the Pancake Challenge which is also on HPFC.**

**Level ****One: Include the word 'pancake**' **in your story**

**Topping: Chocolate chip****\- include chocolate in your story in any way or just use the word 'chocolate'**

**This is also for the Are you Crazy Enough to do it Challenge on HPFC. The prompt I used was...**

**209\. (food) Chocolate chip cookies**

**Word Count (excluding authors note): 2075**

* * *

"Hi Harry." Harry looked up, Ginny was standing in the doorway of Ron's room. He had been staying with the Weasleys at The Burrow ever since the war ended two months ago. He had tried in vain to convince them out of it, saying he didn't deserve to stay with them, but Mrs Weasley wouldn't take a word of it. So here he was, staying with the Weasleys, sharing a room with his best friend and trying to avoid everyone. But Ginny's face was so concerned, he couldn't bring himself to ignore her.

"Hey Ginny."

"Do you want a pancake?" Ginny couldn't bear to see Harry like this, he was like a statue, empty. He was just going through life but not living it. She knew that he was blaming himself for everything that had happened. But it wasn't his fault and she had made it her personal mission to make him realize it.

"A pancake?" he asked blankly.

"Yeah," she said, "I made some for myself. Do you want one?"

He sighed and looked down, "No, I'm not hungry. Thanks anyway."

"Are you sure you don't want to eat?" asked Ginny, her voice laced with concern.

"No, I'm good."

"Well, do you want to do anything." she had resorted to just getting Harry out of the room. That alone would a great accomplishment, "Today is a nice day for Quidditch."

"I don't want to play Quidditch." Harry mumbled to his feet, "Why don't you ask Ron?"

"He's not here. No one is. Percy's at work. His emotional leave just ended. Charlie and Bill dragged George off to Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. They're trying to convince him to reopen the shop. Ron's out with Hermione and Mum and Dad went out together. There's no one here except for us."

"Oh," he said as images of spending the day with Ginny crossed his mind. He shook his head, "I don't really want to do anything."

"Come on Harry," she said fiercely. Harry looked up, startled, "There must be something you want to do."

"Well, I can't think of anything."

"Fine, I'll think of something," Ginny cast around her mind for something the two could do together, "Oh, we could make cookies!"

"Cookies?"

"Yeah, chocolate chip cookies. The muggle way. Hermione taught me last year. We were going to make them for Bill and Fleur's wedding."

"Um," He couldn't think of a way to refuse without hurting her feelings. "You don't have to do that."

"Why not. What if I want to make cookies too." Ginny said fiercely.

Harry thought about it, it wasn't that bad of an idea. Besides, he wouldn't mind making cookies, especially with Ginny. "Okay, sure."

"Wait, really?" Her face lit up. For the past two months, she had gotten used to having Harry reject any idea that involved people, that she couldn't believe he had actually said yes.

"Yeah, I mean why not."

"Great, come on then," grinning happily, Ginny pulled Harry along to the kitchen of The Burrow.

The kitchen of the Burrow was quite messy. There were pots and pans everywhere. Looking slightly embarrassed, Ginny cleared away the remnants of her breakfast and began pulling out ingredients and placing them on the counter.

"We need flour...eggs...sugar...water...butter...baking soda...vanilla extract." she straightened up, "Am I forgetting something?"

Harry smiled despite himself, "Maybe you're forgetting the chocolate chips."

"Oh," she said, blushing furiously, "Oh, of course." She waved her wand and two packs of chocolate chips came flying into her hands. "Which kind of chocolate should we use? I have..." she read the labels out loud, "Milk chocolate and semi-sweet."

"I dunno." he paused slightly before adding, "I've never really had muggle cookies before, let alone chocolate chip ones."

She cocked her head to the side, "But you grew up with muggles."

Harry looked at her, "They would never let me have something as tasty as cookies."

"Why not?"

He shrugged before saying indifferently, "They didn't think I deserved it."

Ginny pursed her lips, angered by how Harry seemed used to this kind of treatment and determined for him to see the truth. That people did care for him and that he was not alone. "Well, you deserve cookies and so much more. Come on, lets use milk chocolate, it's much tastier."

"Alright."

Ginny and Harry started measuring out ingredients,

"Harry, can you crack all the eggs for me?"

"Sure." Harry started to crack an egg and felt a surge of anger go through him, _why was she trying to help him?_

"I'm going to put all the dry ingredients into a seperate bowl, alright."

"Why are you doing this?" he snapped.

"What?" said Ginny, slightly alarmed by the sudden change in his tone.

"You don't have to try and help me. I'm _fine__!_"

Ginny paused in the action of pulling out some bowls, "I want to spend time with you," she said simply, knowing Harry didn't like people trying to help him.

"_Look_," he said, cracking his eggs so violently it was a wonder they weren't flying everywhere, "I don't need you to spend time with me. I don't need help from _anyone_."

"But-"

"I don't deserve it!" he shouted, shoving his bowl of cracked eggs towards Ginny, who looked shocked and very sad. "I don't deserve anything!"

"But Harry, you do deserve it." she said softly, putting all the dry ingredients into a seperate bowl.

"No, I don't," Harry turned away from her concerned eyes, already embarrassed by his outburst.

"Why then," Ginny said, "Tell me why you don't deserve this."

"Because," he said softly, "It's my fault their all dead."

"Oh, Harry..." Ginny had thought that all his feelings were about this. Abandoning her bowl, she wrapped her arms around him, "Harry, it's not your fault. You didn't ask for it to happen."

Harry stiffened for a moment. Then, he buried his head into her shoulder. "But it's still my fault, I let them die..."

"No, you didn't," Ginny whispered. She had been waiting for him to speak to her for months and now that he was, she wasn't so sure she wanted to hear it.

"Sirius died because of me...so did Moody...and Hedwig. The war happened because of me...Lupin...Tonks...and Fred." his shoulders were shaking now.

"Harry, it's not your fault, it's not anyone's fault." Ginny hugged him tighter.

"But Fred died," he pulled from her, "How do you deal with it?"

"Harry, I don't," she whispered, "I still haven't gotten over it. No one has. But we don't blame you."

Harry looked up, "You don't,"

"No one does."

"But isn't it hard?" he asked.

"Of course, it is," Ginny cried, "It's hard to know that I'll never hear him laugh again. It's hard to know there are only 6 Weasley children. It's hard to know that he won't ever pull another prank on me again. It's hard Harry, but pain makes us stronger. And I know Fred wouldn't want us moping around."

Harry sighed, "You're right."

"Of course, I'm right."

"But they still haunt me..."

"What does?"

"Their faces, asking why I didn't save them. I have nightmares every single night and I don't know what to do."

"Talk to us," she said, lightly touching his arm, "We can help you. You don't have to do everything all by yourself."

"What do you do? When you have nightmares."

Ginny paused, it was always difficult for her to talk about her first year at Hogwarts, "I try and distract myself. That way I won't think about it too much. You should do that too."

"I know I should," he sighed, "But it's hard..."

"Well, you've already taken the first step. I mean we're making cookies, aren't we?"

Harry smiled, "Yeah we are."

"Then let's get back to it."

Ginny finished mixing the dry ingredients together while Harry measured out the water.

"Alright," she said, "Now add it slowly. Hermione says we have to mix in between."

"Okay." Harry let the water from a cup trickle into the bowl.

"This is going to take forever!" Ginny exclaimed, her legs already bouncing, "How do muggles do this."

"We just need to be patient, I guess." Harry put a hand on her legs and she stopped bouncing them, blushing. With only one hand on the cup of water, a large amount of water plopped onto the dry mix. "Oh, great. I'm so sorry."

"No problem," said Ginny, mixing the water into their ingredients, "Hey, it actually looks like what Hermione said it would look like!"

"Wow, that was lucky."

"Yeah, it was," said Ginny beaming, "I think we add the eggs in now."

"You think?"

"Hey, you didn't actually expect me to know all the instructions, right? I learned this a year ago."

"True," said Harry, adding in the eggs.

"Hmm, let's add the butter next. Can you get some?" Ginny asked, whisking the eggs into the batter.

"Sure," Harry brought the butter over and Ginny added it into the mix.

"Now all we have left is the vanilla extract," she said as she added it in.

"It looks like how my aunt does it," said Harry, quite impressed with their work.

"We're almost done," Ginny beamed, "Now we have to heat it..."

"Wait how," said Harry, "We don't have an oven."

"Oh, I never thought of that."

"What could we use instead?"

"I guess we could just use a slow heating charm and leave it like that for a while."

"That's a good idea."

Ginny scooped the batter onto a tray in little piles, just like how Hermione had taught her. Then she placed the tray on the counter and cast a slow heating charm over it. Heat soon began to radiate from the tray of slowly baking cookies.

"Wow, that was some great spell work Ginny."

"Thanks."

The two sat down on a couch in the living room.

"Where did those come from?" Harry asked pointing to the vase filled with purple flowers that was sitting on the coffee table in front of them.

"Luna picked them for me." said Ginny, thinking fondly of her friend. "She stopped by last week"

"Did anyone else stop by?

"Angelina did," said Ginny, a smile playing at her lips, "She was the first one to get George talking again."

"Oh," said Harry, noticing Ginny's smile, "Do you think they're going to get together?"

"I sure hope so. Everyone else in the family wants them to get together, but we don't want to upset George."

"Yeah," said Harry, thinking of the two. They really would make a great couple.

"Neville stopped by as well. He gave us that plant." she pointed to a large potted plant near the window.

"He's always loved plants, hasn't he?"

"He sure has."

The two sat for a while, talking about Quidditch and Hogwarts. Harry told her about the hunt for Horcruxes and she told him about her sixth year at Hogwarts. They spoke of many memories that they shared and a few that they didn't. As they talked, they were well aware that a new memory was being made.

"I think the cookies should be ready now." said Ginny after about an hour.

"Yeah, I think so too."

Ginny got up and removed the heating charm she had placed on the tray. The cookies were golden brown and the chocolate was slightly melted. It looked just like the pictures that Hermione had shown her. Smiling to herself, she placed the tray onto the table, "They look good, don't they."

"They look amazing Ginny." Harry grinned and reached for one, then paused. He picked one up and handed it to Ginny, who took it happily. She placed a cookie in Harry's hand, and together they bit into the tasty looking treats.

"Mmm," Neither of them had had something so tasty in quite a while. They both reached for another cookie and ended up catching each others hand instead. Blushing a deep shade of red, Ginny said,

"These are really good."

"They're probably the best cookies I've ever had."

"Really?"

"Of course, they are," said Harry, "I had a great time making them with you."

Ginny smiled and squeezed Harry's hand, "I did too."

The two sat in silence, eating their delicious cookies and enjoying each others company. They looked out the window and saw most of the Weasleys plus Hermione walking up to the door. They looked at each other and wondered how many more amazing memories they would make together.


End file.
